


Rough Night

by CiaranthePage



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kravitz has a bad night and Taako works on his comforting skills, M/M, Mentions of Child Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 03:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CiaranthePage/pseuds/CiaranthePage
Summary: Taako didn’t notice when he’d fallen asleep, but he did notice the cool hand on his cheek that shook him awake. He bolted up, scaring the person the hand belonged to when he dove for the wand under his pillow. Too muddled to cast any spells, Taako forced himself to come to his senses, blinking the sleep out of his eyes to figure out the identity of his visitor.It was only Kravitz; Taako’s heart sunk into his stomach as the wand thunked onto the bed. “Oh, Kravitz, sorry,” he murmured, rubbing his eye. “I didn’t hear you come home.”Kravitz’s shoulders relaxed, the feathered cloak they were supporting disappearing into smoke. He crawled onto the bed, wrapping his arms around Taako and burying his face in his neck without saying a word. Taako hugged him back, ears drooping as he settled his own face into Kravitz’s hair.





	Rough Night

Taako didn’t notice when he’d fallen asleep, but he did notice the cool hand on his cheek that shook him awake. He bolted up, scaring the person the hand belonged to when he dove for the wand under his pillow. Too muddled to cast any spells, Taako forced himself to come to his senses, blinking the sleep out of his eyes to figure out the identity of his visitor.

 

It was only Kravitz; Taako’s heart sunk into his stomach as the wand _thunked_ onto the bed. “Oh, Kravitz, sorry,” he murmured, rubbing his eye. “I didn’t hear you come home.”

 

Kravitz’s shoulders relaxed, the feathered cloak they were supporting disappearing into smoke. He crawled onto the bed, wrapping his arms around Taako and burying his face in his neck without saying a word. Taako hugged him back, ears drooping as he settled his own face into Kravitz’s hair.

 

“You’re late,” Taako whispered, hoping to start a conversation. “Are you… okay?” He winced at the helplessness of his own tone.

 

Kravitz tightened his grip on Taako, shuddering. Okay, so that wasn’t going to work. “Change into your PJs at least,” Taako suggested, stroking his hair and twirling one of Kravitz’s long dreads around his fingers. “You’re still in your black tie ensemble.”

 

Still no answer. This was shaping up to be something of a rough evening, shit. Taako took a deep breath, dislodging Kravitz so he could look his husband in the eyes. “Krav, c’mon, we gotta get you into something… not work-related.”

 

Kravitz looked like he was about to burst into tears. Taako’s heart felt like it was being twisted in a taffy machine. He had to keep going, he thought, shifting to the edge of the bed and pulling Kravitz with him as gently as he could. Kravitz kept a death grip on Taako’s hand, chilling it down to the bone (which Taako tried his hardest to ignore). Kravitz could, theoretically, just summon his own clothes, but he didn’t seem like he was in the best place to do so. He’d started hiccuping; they were soft enough that Taako nearly missed them, but every inch of his being was turned toward Kravitz and he caught them by the second or third jump in his hand.

 

“Babe,” Taako said, turning back to Kravitz once they were standing by the wardrobe. “Are you with me?”

 

A beat. Kravitz nodded. Taako’s shoulders slumped with relief. He moved his free hand to Kravitz’s face, putting their foreheads together. “Stay with me,” he said, trying as best as he could to meet Kravitz’s eyes.

 

Silence filled the room, save for the hiccups Kravitz was trying to suppress. Taako braced himself and slowly pulled away, inching his hand out of Kravitz’s, who simply watched. He seemed frozen to his spot, staring off into the distance beyond the floor of their room. Taako dug around in the wardrobe, pulling out a pair of pants that would probably fit Kravitz and a shirt that Taako didn’t bother making out the design of. _Works enough for me_ , Taako thought. He turned back to Kravitz, pushing the bundle towards him. “Here, zero effort change,” he said.

 

The bundle was accepted with no protest. Kravitz shifted, setting it on the bed and slipping out of his work clothes. A little unnecessary, Taako thought for just a moment, considering the clothes disappeared into black smoke once they hit the ground, but it was probably the movements that he was worried about rather than the clothes.

 

Once Kravitz had changed, they sat on the bed again, Taako holding Kravitz in his lap. A few times, Taako opened his mouth to try and coax out of Kravitz what was bothering him, but he never quite put the right words together -- gods, he really needed to work on that -- and simply let him hiccup and shake.

 

“I-it was,” Kravitz whispered, choking up. “On the mission.”

 

“Mhm?” Taako hummed, playing with Kravitz’s hair. He was talking now, this was good, this was an improvement. Sort of.

 

“The cult I was tracking… they.” Tears had started down Kravitz’s face, though he wasn’t full on crying just yet.

 

Taako’s grip on him tightened. “Krav, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he mumbled into his hair.

 

“No, no, I can’t let this _sit_ ,” Kravitz insisted, wiping his eyes. “Taako, they had _children_. They’d… they’d taken the souls of children to use.”

 

The tears started really pouring. Kravitz was a quiet crier; somehow, that made it worse. Taako couldn’t think of words to comfort him. Was there anything you _could_ say? “Sorry, you had to see the bodies and souls of murdered children while on the job” felt callous and more than a bad idea. Any kind of “sorry” Taako could think of felt hollow. He always hated when people apologize for something that they had no part in; memories of when he and Lup were kids and got caught stealing threatened to bubble up. _Nope_ , thought to himself. _It’s Krav time. Nnnooo memory lane for Taako_.

 

“Kravitz…” Taako tried after a few minutes of letting Kravitz cry himself out, voice catching. What could he say? “It’ll. It’s not okay, what they did, but you got them, right?”

 

A weak nod against his chest. Taako moved his hands to brush at the tears on his face. He stumbled through his words as he added, “They’re. At peace now. You helped ‘em get there and the cultists got what was comin’ for them.”

 

Kravitz chuckled through the tears. “I suppose you’re right. The children didn’t have to go to the Eternal Stockade.”

 

“And the assholes did.” Taako pressed a kiss to Kravitz’s forehead. “Are you feeling better?”

 

Kravitz thought for a moment. His shoulders had stilled, for the most part, the occasional twitch rocking through them; tears still ran down his face, but they’d slowed to a trickle. “I… I don’t know,” he admitted.

 

Ah, that feeling. Taako felt a stab of it himself. “...That’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to know. What you _do_ need is a nap, because --”

 

“Taako, I don’t --”

 

“I know, I know, you don’t _technically_ need sleep, but. You look like you could use it.”

 

Kravitz stared at Taako for a moment, then just smiled as much as he could. “I suppose dreaming wouldn’t be too bad of an option.”

 

“That settles it, then. You’re going to go to sleep, and I’ll be right here while you do.”

 

Though he’d originally intended to quite literally stay where he was -- namely, sitting up and watching over Kravitz -- Taako found himself tugged down under the blankets, Kravitz still wrapped around him. Kravitz’s heart/soul beat had started up while he was calming down, Taako noticed, and his body was warm. That was a good sign.

 

“I love you,” Kravitz mumbled into Taako’s neck as he started to doze off.

 

Taako snorted, covering his mouth to hide the sound. “I love you too, babe,” he replied, tugging the blanket up so the top of Kravitz’s head barely peaked out. “Night.”

 

Kravitz was already asleep. Crying was apparently still pretty exhausting when you were dead.

  
_Good to know_ , Taako mused, drifting back to sleep himself.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if this is going to be my last fic of 2017, but it probably will, so! Happy new years everyone! I'm posting this with 2 hours left on my clock but I know plenty of people out there are already living in 2018!! Isn't that wild??  
> Thanks for sticking with me, if you're a longer-time reader, and thanks for checking this out if you're a new one! I hope 2018 goes much, much better for us all, and includes plenty more nice fics  
> *finger guns*


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